After ten events, the final five men and women have been decided and the WSL Finals are upon us. For the third time, it’s this event – rather than simply the accumulation of points throughout the season – which will determine our two world champions, and as it has over the past two years will take place over the course of just one day at Trestles.
Plenty of people have taken umbrage at the idea that the best surfer throughout the course of the year isn’t necessarily crowned the world champion, but while that’s a reasonable enough complaint the number one seed is given a pretty hefty advantage over the number two, who is in turn better placed than number three and so on. The contest begins with the number five seed taking on the number four seed in Match #1 – the winner of that heat advances to take on the third seed in Match #2. You can probably guess where the rest is going – the inner of Match #2 takes on the two seed in Match #3, and the winner of that heads through to the Title Match to take on the one seed. The first three matches are all individual heats, but for the Title Match, it’s best of three heats, meaning the number one seed won’t be too disadvantaged by having not competed all day.
On the men’s side of things, the top four was long ago decided, but fifth place changed at the final event with Jack Robinson winning in Tahiti to earn a spot in the finals. Atop the standings is a familiar face in Filipe Toledo, but if anyone but he wins, we’ll have a new world champion.
For the women, the clear top two in Carissa Moore and Caroline Marks deservedly finished first and second respectively, though Caroline Marks hit a serious vein of form over the back half of the year and got pretty close to them. Further down, a couple of young guns round out the pack of five.
Last year, the men’s side of the draw saw Filipe Toledo win as the one seed while the complete opposite happened for the women, with Steph Gilmore surfing incredibly to win from fifth spot. So how will it all pan out this year? Let’s take a look at how both the men’s and the women’s WSL Finals are shaping up.
The Men’s WSL Finals
Let’s be honest – Filipe Toledo is going to take a lot of beating. The reigning world champion is suited to a tee by Trestles and will obviously have the advantage of going straight to the Title Match, and with no Gabriel Medina or John John Florence his chances seem even better. None of the other surfers in these WSL Finals have ever won before, so he’ll have the experience on his side too, but having said that each of his four opponents are in the final five for a reason, and all it takes is a couple of good heats to earn the title. Beginning with Match #1, this is how the contest is set to play out.
Match #1 – Joao Chianca (4) vs Jack Robinson (5)
Younger brother of big wave surfer Lucas, Joao Chianca has come from the clouds in his second year on tour after finishing 29th in the first. But anyone who watched him last year won’t be surprised – he surfed brilliantly without luck in his first season on tour, often losing high scoring heats by small margins, and from the outset of this year he looked like a potential WSL Finalists. So too did Jack Robinson, who was the best surfer in the world in the early stages of the year before suffering an injury and subsequently a huge downturn in form which saw him fall well out of the top five. He likely needed a win in Tahiti to make it into the top five, and win he did, so he comes in here in some good form.
This should be a very entertaining heat to kick us off, with both surfers capable of some seriously powerful surfing, both in a traditional sense with big carves and hacks, and a less traditional one with aerials. Robinson probably enters this as the favourite given he’s been around for a bit longer and is coming off a win at Teahupo’o, but Chianca is capable of putting some very high scores. It wouldn’t surprise to see a high scoring, tight heat to kick off the Men’s WSL Finals.
Match #2 – Ethan Ewing (3) vs Winner of Match #1
Ethan Ewing will compete at the WSL Finals for the second straight year, again finishing in third place at the end of the regular season. Unfortunately for the young Aussie, he was knocked out in his first heat – Match #2 – a year ago by Italo Ferreira, going down 13.1-11.83, and he’ll be keen to avoid another quick exit this year. Though that wasn’t the kind of score needed to advance at the WSL Finals, he comes into the contest in solid form having won at J-Bay just two events ago, and on another peeling right-hander he should be able to put together some bigger numbers this time around. And he’ll likely have to; he’ll be up against one of two guys capable of big scores, and whoever he faces will obviously be coming off a win. Last year suggested having been in the water was of significant benefit – Ferreira, after surfing in Match #1, went on to beat both the third and second seeds, while Steph Gilmore did the same on the women’s side – so Ewing will probably need a lot more than the 11.83 he managed in the corresponding matchup last year to advance.
Match #3 – Griffin Colapinto (2) vs Winner of Match #2
After finishing sixth and seventh over the past two years, Griffin Colapinto has finally sewed up a top two spot, and he did it with his good work early in the season. He’s been in the top two most of the year in a battle with Toledo for the yellow jersey, though his form has fallen off a cliff in the lead up to the WSL Finals. Fortunately for him he still managed to hang onto the second seed, but a failure to get past the Round of 16 in the past three events doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in his ability to make it to the Title Match. Of course, he’s still well placed, needing to win just a solitary heat to give himself a shot at the world title, but up against one of Ewing, Robinson or Chianca, who will have surfed at least once if not twice already, he’ll have to surf a lot better than he has been lately.
Title Match (three heats) – Filipe Toledo (1) vs Winner of Match #3
Whether Colapinto wins his first heat or one of the others makes their way through from a lower position, they’ll have a mighty tough task awaiting them in the Title Match. Filipe Toledo has been in the top two surfers all year and has broken away over the back half, winning two of the last four events to clearly establish himself as the man to beat this year. As mentioned earlier, he is perfectly suited to Trestles, with the long clean lines allowing him a blank canvas to tear to shreds. If we get mid-sized conditions, he will be so tough to stop, and if it’s small it’ll be close to impossible. Last year he was clinical – Italo Ferreira had been surfing all day and continued that with two scores just short of 15, but Toledo managed a 15.13 in Heat 1 and a 16.5 in Heat 2 to wrap up the best-of-three Title Match 2-0. The year prior to that he finished second, but that was after finishing as the three seed – he first beat Conner Coffin with a score of 16.57, then Ferreira with a 15.97, then went down in two consecutive heats to Medina despite scoring 15.7 and 16.36. To sum that all up, in the past two years at the WSL Finals he’s averaged more than 16 points a heat, and he’s only got better this year. Whoever makes it to this matchup will have to surf their absolute brains out to beat Toledo.
Our Prediction
All five of the surfers in the Men’s WSL Finals this year are capable and would be worthy winners, but there’s just no going past Filipe Toledo. He won last year, he’s been the best surfer all year, he only has to beat one other opponent, and his surfing here over the course of six heats in the past two years has been consistently off the charts. History would suggest whoever his opponent is will need in excess of 15 or 16 to beat him in a single heat, so to do that twice will be mighty hard. It’s certainly not out of the realms of possibility, but Toledo is the comfortable favourite to win this for good reason.
The Women’s WSL Finals
If last year’s Women’s WSL Finals taught us anything, it’s that anyone is capable of winning, from the number one seed way down to number five. The latter is literally what happened last year, with the then 34-year-old surfing like a woman possessed to win a record eighth world title. Unfortunately, she missed out this year, so it will instead be up to a couple of young guns in Molly Picklum and Caitlin Simmers if anyone is going to repeat Gilmore’s effort. Realistically, however, it’s the top two of Carissa Moore and Tyler Wright who have been the best surfers all year, while Caroline Marks has made an impressive effort to join them late in the year. Certainties are rare in life and rarer in professional surfing, but it looks likely that the world champion will come from that trio.
Match #1 – Molly Picklum (4) vs Caitlin Simmers (5)
This is a matchup which we’ll likely see in plenty of significant heats in the future, with Picklum just 20 years of age and in her second full season on tour, and Simmers, incredibly, in her first season at only 17. Picklum has been super solid all year, making the quarterfinals in every event, though on only three of those ten occasions has she advanced past that stage. Simmers has been a little more erratic – half her contests have ended in the Round of 16, while of the other five, she’s won two, finished second once and third another time.
That suggests that Simmers probably has the better chance of springing a surprise and making her way deep into these WSL Finals, but the lack of consistency also means it’s easy to see her stumbling at the first hurdle. Neither of these two have any sort of experience in a heat of such significance, and who wins this may well come down to who can hold their nerve better – a 20-year-old or a 17-year-old. Regardless of who wins though, this heat will be an exciting glimpse into the future of women’s surfing.
Match #2 – Caroline Marks (3) vs Winner of Match #1
Speaking of young guns, Caroline Marks has been the most notable of them for a long time, having finished 7th on the Championship Tour at just 16 and then 2nd the very next year. After a couple of quieter years, she’s returned to some of the form that made her such a prodigious young talent in her teen years, and she’s still just 21 – hard to believe given how long she’s been around. She hasn’t finished in the top five since the WSL Finals were introduced in 2021 and so doesn’t have experience at a contest like this, but that won’t bother her. She’s surfing as well as anyone in the world coming in – at the last six events of the season, she’s finished 3rd twice, 2nd once and won twice, including at the most recent event in Tahiti. Whichever of her younger peers makes it through to Match #2 will have their work cut out stopping Marks.
Match #3 – Tyler Wright (2) vs Winner of Match #2
There’s hardly a more deserving surfer to be competing deep in the WSL Finals than Tyler Wright, who, after winning two world titles in 2016 and 2017, has struggled with a host of issues to get back to her best. Last year she seemed to have returned to that form only to again hit a roadblock with horrible luck and injury, but this year, at long last, she’s been able to surf out the entire season at her best. The result is a second place finish, and she is a serious threat to go all the way. Wright has finished sixth and eighth the last two years so, like Marks, hasn’t competed in the WSL Finals yet, but also like Marks she comes into the contest after a great year and in some form which will make her hard to beat. She’s made eight out of ten semi-finals this year and the final in five events, though four of those have resulted in runner-up finishes. She’ll be pretty keen to upend that trend at Trestles. She’ll likely be favourite to win this heat, but if Marks wins with an impressive score in Match #2 she might be a little less confident.
Title Match (three heats) – Carissa Moore (1) vs Winner of Match #3
It feels like it’s been a long time since Moore was truly challenged for the title of best surfer in the world, but Wright went mighty close to taking it off her this year, and the Hawaiian only hung onto the number one seed by the skin of her teeth. But hang on she did, meaning she’ll head straight to the Title Match for the third time in as many years since the WSL Finals were first introduced. In the first of those years, she just barely outlasted Tatiana Weston-Webb in a 2-1 win in the best-of-three series, but she surfed really well along the way with scores of 14.06, 17.26 and 16.6. Last year, however, she stumbled where Gilmore shone, scoring just 10.9 and 11.97 while the eventual champion scored in excess of 15 both times. Whoever she comes up against, those kind of scores won’t cut it, but they were a very rare display of nerves for the five-time world champ, who is typically as stoic as anyone. Interestingly, she doesn’t enter the contest in the best vein of form having not made a final at any of the last four events, though she was knocked out in the semis three of those times. Still, she does look a little more vulnerable than she has in the past, and with most likely Wright or Marks set to join her in this Title Match, she’ll need to surf really well to earn a sixth world title.
Our Prediction
Picklum and Simmers have both surfed really well this year, but it’s hard to imagine either of them getting past each of Marks, Wright and then Moore twice. Most likely, the winner will come from one of those three. Moore is clearly the best positioned and by virtue of being the number one seed is the woman to beat, but Marks and Wright both enter the contest in better form. Wright, in particular, has been fantastic all year. After finishing second so often this year, she can turnaround that trend and earn her third world title, and her first in six years.
